Interdisciplinary Art and Robotics: Animatronic Petting Zoo

This project based learning opportunity was a collaboration between two classes of 8th grade Art students and a class of 8th grade Robotics and a class of Computer Aided Design students at North Middle School. Students in these four classes formed multidisciplinary groups to tackle the creation of an Animatronic Petting Zoo, to be displayed at our school's Community Art celebration.

In this project, students collaborated for multiple weeks to act as a team of designers and engineers. During this process, students learned and built design thinking, CTE, programming, building, robotics, sculpture, painting, engineering, and communication/collaboration skills. Students formed multidisciplinary teams where each student could be an expert in one area, similar to how teams work in real design careers. Students collaborated not only in person, but also using digital collaboration tools to facilitate asynchronous collaboration skills that are needed in today's global economy.  

This collaboration was meant to hit several standards from ISTE:

• 1.3 Knowledge Constructor: Students plan and employ effective research strategies to locate information and other resources for their creative pursuits
• 1.4 Innovative Designer: Students use a variety of technologies within a design process to solve problems and to create new imaginative solutions. Students develop, test, and refine prototypes as part of a cyclical design process.
• 1.7 Global Collaborator: Students use collaborative technologies to work with others. Students contribute constructively to project teams, assuming various roles and responsibilities to work effectively toward a common goal. 

Cardboard and other sculpture materials

Wire

String

Lots of tape

Microbit

Hummingbird Bit robotics kit

Before beginning work on the animatronic project, our students first did a smaller task to practice collaboration skills. This task was to design and fabricate a company logo and sign. Art students did ideation for a team logo, then send the logo set to CAD/Robotics students who worked using Fusion 360 to create a 3D design and then layout for laser cutting. This design was then cut from cardboard on our school laser cutter and sent back to the art kids to finish.

This allowed us to iron out some of the complexities of a larger project, with students working on different aspects asynchronously.

The theme for this first year of this project was: Petting Zoo. (This project may become a yearly feature, and then we will have rotating themes)

My students and the art students that were collaborating on this project had no chances to meet in-person during class times. Students used google slides as a working engineering notebook, where they uploaded their sketches and other progress and left notes to each other to plan.

We asked the students to plan an animatronic sculpture to fit the theme. It needed at least one sensor to activate some aspect of its movement. It needed two motions or other electronic effects (sounds, lights).

Students used Hummingbird Bit Robotics kits to make mechanisms for light sound and motion. This kit uses a Microbit as the processor, and has an easy to use board for attaching servos, leds, and sensors. There are many great short tutorials on each part of the kit found here: https://www.birdbraintechnologies.com/products/hummingbird-bit-robotics-kit/

My students used these tutorials to learn the parts and then set out to create prototype mechanisms and code them using microbit's blockly code.

The robotics students built these mechanisms and then sent their notes, pictures and videos over to the arts kids to use for the next stage.

Our art teacher led the students in created sculpture from simple materials (cardboard, paper, foil, etc). They worked on various attachment techniques, and how to make the armatures strong as needed for building the animatronic sculptures. The art kids then worked to make the base sculptures.

Once made, the robotics and art kids worked to find the best ways to attach their mechanisms into the sculptures.

Finally, paint and other artistic touches were added.

After all of the parts were made, electronics prototyped, etc, the art and robotics students needed to bring everything together. This was the most difficult step due to students not working at the same time. Kids would work to set up one section of their sculpture, and then leave notes to their teammates who would be working later in the dat for how to assemble the next piece. This process was a huge challenge and skill-gain for communication!

Our school hosted a student showcase (evening of the arts), of which the animatronics zoo was a major part. This allowed our students to share their designs with the community and see the reactions of others to their hard work.